"The crownless shall walk unseen,and shadows will kneel before his name."— Fragment from The Codex Ardelion, forbidden text
The city was quieter than usual that night.Too quiet.
From his study window, Lucian watched the fog coil over the marble streets like breath from a dying god. The moon hung low — a dull, fractured coin — and even the nightbirds had fallen silent. The Empire's capital rarely slept, but when it did, it dreamed of knives.
Lucian turned away from the window, exhaling faintly. The parchment before him was blank, though his quill bled black across its edge. The ink smelled faintly of iron.
He felt it before he heard it — the change in air pressure, the faint ripple of mana where none should be. A heartbeat out of place. The manor was too still.
Someone was inside.
Lucian didn't move at first. He set down his quill, rose from the chair, and brushed invisible dust from his coat. "At last," he murmured softly, the ghost of a smile crossing his lips. "They've found their courage."
His voice didn't echo.
He stepped lightly across the floor, each motion deliberate, predatory. The candlelight guttered once, then steadied. Somewhere behind the walls, a faint scrape — metal on stone — whispered its warning. Whoever had come tonight was no common killer. Their silence was too precise.
Lucian reached for the dagger sheathed beneath his coat. It wasn't ornate, not the weapon of a noble, but the blade of a man who remembered dying once and didn't intend to repeat it.
He waited.
Then — a breath.A flicker.
The assassin dropped from the ceiling like a phantom, blade angled for the artery beneath Lucian's jaw.
Lucian twisted.Steel met air.Then his dagger flashed upward, catching the assassin's wrist mid-strike.
Their eyes met.
The intruder wore a mask of dull silver, expressionless but for the thin line of a mouth painted across it — smiling. A noble house symbol burned faintly across his black tunic: House Valenor. Old enemies. Old debtors.
Lucian's grin widened a fraction. "They sent one of you," he said softly. "I'm flattered."
The assassin said nothing. He wrenched free, spun, and slashed again — faster this time, angling for Lucian's ribs. Lucian deflected, barely. Sparks leapt from the clash, gold against black.
The fight was silent but for breath and steel. Lucian moved like a shadow given form — every step calculated, every strike meant to test, not kill. He wanted to learn. The assassin's stance was Valenor-trained: right foot heavy, grip low, blade reversed for throat work. Efficient. Brutal.
He'd been trained to kill men, not monsters.
Lucian let the dagger slip from his hand — intentionally — drawing the assassin in. The blade kissed his side, shallow but enough to draw blood. He hissed softly, the pain bright and clear.
The assassin lunged again, confident now.
Lucian caught the man's wrist mid-strike, drove his forehead forward with sudden force — crack — the silver mask split. The assassin staggered back, dazed, and Lucian's dagger was suddenly in his hand again, faster than sight.
"Wrong vein," Lucian whispered.
Steel slid in.A clean, surgical motion.The assassin shuddered once, then went still.
Lucian held him upright as he died, lowering him soundlessly to the floor. He removed the broken mask — beneath it, a young man's face. No older than twenty, perhaps, eyes still flickering with disbelief.
Lucian studied him, almost regretfully. "You were good," he said quietly. "But not enough."
He wiped the blade on the dead man's cloak and turned toward the desk. Blood seeped slowly from his side, dark against white linen. The wound wasn't deep, but it would scar. He welcomed it.
A mark of reminder.The game had begun in earnest.
He leaned back against the desk, listening. The city outside still slept, unaware. The assassin's body lay crumpled beneath the window, and the fog pressed harder against the glass, as though trying to enter.
Lucian reached for the corpse's pocket, retrieving a small, wax-sealed scroll.The seal bore the emblem of House Valenor, but beneath it — another mark, burned faintly into the wax — the sigil of the Watchers.
His expression cooled. "So it begins."
He turned the scroll over in his hand, snapped the seal, and unrolled it.Inside, a single line, written in elegant Imperial script:
'You should have taken the prince's hand.'
Lucian smiled — cold and slow."Tell your prince," he said softly to the corpse, "that even gods bleed."
He let the parchment curl in the candle's flame until it blackened.The smoke rose, twisting, curling upward into the rafters — like a ghost escaping.
Lucian's blood stained his waistcoat, but he didn't move to treat it. Pain was grounding. Pain was memory. He'd felt worse on the scaffold of his first death.
Instead, he sat back down at his desk, dipped the quill again, and began to write.The ink shimmered like oil, black and iridescent under the candlelight.
To the Houses of the Empire,You have drawn first blood. I will not draw second.When the sun rises, may it find you awake, trembling, and without heirs.— Lucian Ardelion, the Crownless.
The ink dried like shadow.
He sealed the note with his personal sigil — a wolf's head crowned in flame — and handed it to the raven perched on the windowsill. The creature took off into the fog, wings slicing through the darkness.
Lucian exhaled, closing his eyes briefly. The ache in his side pulsed in rhythm with the heartbeat of the city — both bleeding, both alive.
When he opened his eyes again, dawn was bleeding into the horizon.And the capital below was beginning to stir.The nobles would wake to the scent of blood and fear — and by evening, they would whisper again of the Crownless Wolf.
Not as rumor.As inevitability.